Connor McDavid has snapped his scoring drought, which had reached 10 games prior to Saturday. And while it wasn’t the prettiest goal, he’ll take it. So will the Edmonton Oilers, looking to snap a five-game losing skid.

Looking to make a pass in front of the Dallas Stars net, McDavid tried to send the puck across to an open Milan Lucic, who was looking for the one-timer.

The puck never made it to Lucic. Instead, it was deflected into an open net by Stars’ defenseman John Klingberg, giving the Oilers a 1-0 lead early in the first period.

“His best play came after some penalty problems (earlier this season). We delivered a stern message and he responded really well. He’s given us what he can but the timing, the reading, the reacting, not much is getting done for Benny. He needs to take a breather,” coach Todd McLellan said of his decision to remove Pouliot from the lineup.

“It’s hard putting three players in at the same time but we need a jolt. I think it’s a little much to expect them to lead us to the winning Wonderland but they can have an impact because they’re fresh.”

After a strong start, the Oilers have lost five in a row.

They’re still second in the Pacific Division, but McLellan will provide another shake-up for his team with some lineup changes for Saturday’s contest with the Dallas Stars.

Caggiula, the reigning NCAA Frozen Four most outstanding player that signed with the Oilers when his college career ended, has yet to play a game this season due to a hip injury suffered in pre-season.

“It was a more severe injury that we thought,” said Caggiula. “I skated two or three days after it and felt good, but the day before opening night, I fell on the ice and tweaked it. Another look at it and it was worse.”

“Right now we’re going to have our doctors take a good look at him. This obviously might be more than just back spasms. We’re going to take a look at this and we’ll come up with a plan and I’ll share that plan with you.”

The Rangers have been one of the big stories in the NHL so far this season. They’ve averaged a league-leading 4.11 goals-for per game, which is well ahead of second-place Columbus in that category.

Buchnevich didn’t waste any time becoming a contributor to that high-powered offense.

In 10 games, he has recorded eight points. He had a scoring streak of four straight games before coming out of the lineup due to his ailing back, and his possession numbers (55.6 per cent Corsi For) have been strong through 120 minutes at five-on-five.

The Rangers will look to rebound from a 4-2 loss to the Blue Jackets on Friday, as their schedule enters a difficult stretch next week.

They host the Florida Panthers on Sunday, then travel to Pittsburgh to play Sidney Crosby and the Penguins on Monday. The Rangers and Penguins meet again Wednesday in New York.

On Monday, the 2016 class was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. It’s a night of many emotions for those who are honored, as well as their families.

The focus will soon shift to who should be in the Hall of Fame next year.

— Teemu Selanne enters his first year of eligibility. He certainly has the credentials, with 684 career goals and 1,457 points. He’s an Olympic medalist and a Stanley Cup champion. He began his NHL career with a bang, scoring 76 goals — a remarkable achievement that may never be broken.

— Daniel Alfredsson enters his first year of eligibility. He’s never won the Stanley Cup, but he is an Olympic champion, with 1,246 regular season games, 444 goals and 1,157 points in his career. That’s quite impressive for a sixth-round draft pick. He played 17 seasons with the Ottawa Senators and one season with the Detroit Red Wings.

— Dave Andreychuk enters his ninth year of eligibility. He captained the Tampa Bay Lightning to a Stanley Cup in 2004 and played 1,639 games in the NHL. He ranks 14th all-time in goals with 640. He’s accumulated 1,338 points over his lengthy career.

Now, have your say. Choose up to four players, the maximum number of NHLers for an annual Hockey Hall of Fame class. For write-in suggestions, put those in the comments section.

TORONTO (AP) Eric Lindros carved an unprecedented path to hockey stardom, including where the incoming Hall of Famer lived when he entered the NHL.

It was about a month into Lindros’ rookie season with the Philadelphia Flyers that the prodigy asked to move in with veteran teammate Kevin Dineen and his newlywed wife, Annie.

“And I was like, `Ah, let me go home and talk to my wife about that,”‘ Dineen recalled almost 25 years later.

Lindros had already bought a townhouse with “everything you could ever want,” but he was also a teenager in an unforgiving American city. Dineen figures he was probably a little bit lonely.

So Lindros spent two years in the Dineens’ home, flush with dogs and a growing, makeshift family. The unlikely unit ate breakfast and dinner together, and sometimes Lindros and Dineen sneaked into classes at the University of Pennsylvania, where Annie was working toward her master’s degree.

“It was funny in a lot of ways,” Dineen said. “It was like having a little brother who was much bigger than you.”

“He was probably the most dominant player during his time in the NHL,” longtime teammate Rod Brind’Amour said.

At 6-foot-4 and more than 200 pounds, Lindros was like a freight train on skates, but with the agility and skills to move like a race car.

Brind’Amour still remembers hopelessly trying to defend Lindros at his first practice with the Flyers in 1992. Lindros had one hand on his stick as he rushed down the wing but still somehow whipped a wrist shot into the top corner.

“And I’m like, nobody can do that in the NHL,” Brind’Amour said. “And of course, if he wanted to run you over, he could run you through the boards. And then if you wanted to fight, he could fight. There was just nothing that he couldn’t really do. And that was impressive because there wasn’t really anyone in the NHL that could do everything.”

Dineen believes Lindros should be remembered as a progressive force. The hockey world could have its opinions, but Lindros stood by his best interests.

“He gets painted a little bit with the ugly brush because of the stands he took,” said Dineen, now a Chicago Blackhawks assistant coach.

Lindros twice refused to play for the team that drafted him No. 1 overall. He famously spurned the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques in 1991, later saying he didn’t want to play for owner Marcel Aubut, and that came two years after he declined to play for Sault Ste. Marie of the Ontario Hockey League – the club eventually to traded him to Oshawa.

Lindros sat out the 2000-01 season waiting for a trade out of Philadelphia following a bitter public spat with general manager Bobby Clarke regarding the treatment of Lindros’ injuries, including multiple concussions. Compare that to the handling of current stars like Sidney Crosby, whose concussions have been handled by the Penguins with caution.

“It’s not like you’re looking to go upstream,” Lindros said. “The choices that I made were choices that other people had done before me. It wasn’t like it was fresh territory.”

Perhaps not on a case-by-case basis, but the entirety of Lindros’ off-ice drama is unprecedented among NHL superstars.

And still, his career will be defined as much by what it wasn’t as what it was.

Injuries limited him to fewer than 800 regular season games and retirement at age 34. He has some of the finest seasons ever in the league on his resume, but no longevity to go with it. And of course, Lindros also lacks a precious Stanley Cup title.

What could his career have been with good health? Brind’Amour thinks Lindros’ brute, physical style likely would have degraded his productivity with time.

Regardless, the powerful Lindros made a dent on the sport. His dominance and distinctiveness can’t be denied.

“He’s one in a lifetime,” Brind’Amour said. “I don’t know if you’ll ever see a player like him because the game’s changed so much now. The physical part of the game is kind of out the door. No kids growing up are trying to be like that. It’s all skill and skating, so I don’t know that you’re going to see that kind of player again.”